Washington CNN —Music publishers sued Twitter for more than $250 million in damages on Wednesday, alleging that the social media platform “breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators.”The lawsuit alleges that for years, Twitter has allowed users of its platform to share copyrighted songs without a license. Twitter’s alleged permissiveness around users sharing copyrighted songs, combined with the social network’s promotion of tweets with copyrighted music, has unlawfully helped fuel the company’s growth, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association, whose members include Universal, Sony and Warner Music Group. “Providing free, unlicensed music gives the Twitter platform an unfair advantage over competing platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and others.”Twitter’s competitors, the music publishers said, all pay licensing fees to rightsholders for the ability to use the copyrighted music. The lawsuit cites the sweeping layoffs under Musk’s ownership that have eliminated entire teams at Twitter. It also highlights Musk’s own views on copyright, including a screenshot of two of his tweets from prior to the acquisition.

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Persons: Elon Musk, Twitter’s, Mariah Carey’s, Mark Ronson’s, ”, Bruno Mars, Snapchat, Twitter didn’t, ” Musk Organizations: Washington CNN — Music, Twitter, Elon, National Music Publishers ’ Association, Universal, Sony, Warner Music Group, Facebook, YouTube, Copyright, Federal Trade Commission, Court, Middle, Middle District of Locations: Funk, Middle District, Middle District of Tennessee